lathe capabilities

I've been looking at a lot of lathes but I didn't know how much of a difference between the Grizzly 9x and 10x were. The 10x is twice has heavy, more power, and only costs 100 extra bucks. Grizzly have a good value also, it comes with the 4 jaw chuck I will need for off center work and the steady rest.
The Southbend and Logan do have the low gear for good slow power. The belts make sense for a newbie like me also.

So, I'll keep my eyes peeled for Logan's and SB's, but if Grizzly 20% off sale occurs I'll jump on that 10x.
Is there and other lathes that would fit in this 9-11" category? Craftsman?

Also, what would be an easy way to tell if a lathe it too beat up for me to do decent threads on? Does scratches on the bed ways immediately count it out? How about the QB or the lead screw?

Thanks!
 
As I said above, skip the Craftsman unless you find a late-model in mint condition. Those aren't very stout, and command a higher price than their intrinsic value indicates.

Scratches are no problem. It's wear that you want to avoid, and it's often hard to detect by eye.
What's QB?
 
Does running the carriage from the headstock to the tail stock work well to indicate if the ways are worn? Any other tricks cheap or easy tricks? Should I buy a dial indicator and use that?
 
i have the G0602 10x22 i made a reverse tumbler for it based on Normans design he also made a speed reducer which i'll put together at some point for mine.

here is my reverse tumbler

the 10x22 is well worth the money IMO but i might be biased but the wait on one might be a bit they seem to go fast

Blame
 
Running the carriage to the limits of travel will tell you if someone has tightened up some gibs to compensate for wear in a particular area, but it is fairly common for things to get a little tighter near the tailstock end. If you have a 1" indicator, you could place it to measure the slack in the half nut, since threading is important to you. Pick a spot near the Z position where you expect to be threading, and engage the nut. Push and pull axially and see how much movement the indicator picks up. Naturally, there has to be some, but if the nut is really worn, you may see quite a bit. Of course, this is done with the spindle stopped and the machine not under power.

Also, some people test the spindle bearing with an indicator to check for end play, and radial play. Radial test typically require a leverage bar and a block. All this is a lot of trouble, but if the lathe is suspect in any way, it may be worth it.
 
Kmartin,
Finding bed wear is a fairly involved process to do it right. At the very least you'd need a dial indicator and stand.
The way I do it mount it to the tailstock, with the plunger bearing on the front v-way, and run it along from the chuck back at least halfway. Any more than a couple thousandths is wear.
There are more accurate ways, but most sellers don't have the patience to let you do that, especially when there's a guy behind you with cash in hand.

If you need precision like you do, in a first lathe, you might be best off to just buy that new 10x22.

Otherwise, site back and be patient. Around here lathes are somewhat scarce, but they come in waves. I've bought 3 at very good deals in the last 2 months, after a drought of a year or so. I recently bought an excellent 9" South Bend for a very low price. But I was lucky, and quick.
 
I'm probably over emphasizing the threading necessities. I'm also patient, and love good deals so I'll take my time. Hopefully after looking at several used lathes I'll start getting the feel for what a good lathe should have.

BTW, A SB 9" model A advertised for $900 on Craigslist was sold withing 3 hours of posting on a Saturday afternoon. Guess I need to be quicker and keep 1K cash on hand. How someone could muster 1k in cash on Saturday evening is amazing.

Maybe when I finish school I'll rent a semi truck and start importing lathes from the NE to the NW.
 
Renting a truck isn't such a bad idea! Something to consider with used machines is that a good percentage are worn out junk. Now, if you live where used machines are scarce, my guess is most everything you see is worn out junk, and a decent one will be snapped up before you ever get there. More likely it will never hit the market at all, as some friend of the seller will get it first. Check areas with more machines- rust belt.

I use a 10" Logan and can tell you it's the smallest size that makes any sense. The longer the bed, the better, especially if you intend to use a steady rest for longer parts. I don't agree that the lathe has to have near zero wear to do good work. My Logan has about 0.005" of bed wear, and I can hold .0002"/" in collets or between centers. Threads are near flawless, or if they're not it's because I screwed up, not the lathe. If you want to do metric threads, get a change gear lathe, not a quick change gearbox. It's just easier to deal with and (flameproof underwear on) I think the accuracy and quality is better due to the simpler gear train.
 
You definitely have to be prepared to act quickly and with cash when the deals pop up.

I have this search phrase set up on my CL tab: lathe|lath|lather
I run it every hour in the tools section, and once a day on All For Sale, which turns up lathes in garage sales, estate sales, business & industrial, and even Free Stuff and miscategorized.

I recently bought a very nice SB 9A for $100, because I was the first to call and I got there in 45 minutes (Broke several laws). There was a very long line of PO'd guys glaring at me.
I've also bought a minilathe for $100 about 2 weeks earlier.

I also have a saved search on ebay that emails me whenever a lathe (or tooling) is listed within 100 miles. It rarely turns up anything useful, but a few weeks ago an Atlas 618 was listed for $275 starting. Poor photos, lousy description. After a week with no bids, I asked to look at it (it was a few miles from home). Turned out to be a dirty lathe in excellent condition, mounted with some tooling. I bought it for cash and he killed the auction. It's easily worth $500 in this market, but I'm probably going to keep it and sell a minilathe.

Now you know all my secrets, but right now I have more lathes in the shop than I know what to do with ;D

As for the bed wear, I agree that for your purposes it won't matter. It's when you make cuts or threads that transition form worn to unworn areas that inaccuracy happens.
 
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